It is always inspiring to listen to John. The only point I don’t agree with him (not discussed in this interview) is that US must defend Taiwan. But he may change his mind if he understands how the Chinese mentality works. After all, China isn’t a nation state. It is a civilisation masquerading as a country.
Not sure a civilization masquerades as a country. Of course China is a nation state by any definition of that historically recent term.
The US does not want to defend Taiwan, it just wants to weaken China. It would happily see Taiwanese slaughtered, as it does in Ukraine, if it meant a weaker China. Taiwan is a part of China and the Chinese are patient. They will wait until the Taiwanese realise they are being used as pawns in the same sort of game the Americans are playing in Ukraine.
Mearsheimer is wrong on this count but then he was wrong 15 years ago when he concluded Russia would not go to war against Ukraine/US/Nato. No-one gets it all right.
Yes, China is a nation state. One of the main reasons Chinese say China is a civilisation masquerading as a country is because throughout our 5000 years of recorded history, we saw the rise and fall of dynasties. But the Chinese civilisation is a thread that runs through all the changes in dynasties (and political systems).
And our history tells us that whenever the central government was weak, there was turmoil.
All countries with 5000 years of history and the Egyptians are even older than that, probably 10,000 years given evidence regarding the Sphinx, know that time brings the rise and fall of many dynasties but that a cultural thread endures. India has seen the same. And everyone learned the same thing that weak government means turmoil which is why so many strong nations work so hard to remain powerful. They of course mistake power for strength. They are not the same thing.
One of John’s key contentions as a Realist is that different nation-states don’t have fundamentally different mentalities; they are like billiard balls in the sense that the deterministic forces of international power politics effects all of them the same way, regardless of culture or history.
The modern Chinese nation-state is not exceptional in this regard.
Yours is an interesting post. I've read that at least part of the reason Xi has gone more totalitarian is fear that PRC would fracture. It certainly isn't a nation-state in the sense that we in the West think and I've debated when the US became a true nation and when PRC might become one. Most would say it was after the Civil War although I think one can argue for later. I do disagree regarding Taiwan though; it is a nation with ties to the Chinese civilization.
You aren't from Taiwan are you? I'm in a study group that is mostly Taiwanese, Taiwanese-Americans and immigrants that are from PRC. Was shocked when the topic of Taiwanese independence got brought up once and people got very snippy. It only got talked about once and we will never talk about it again; I was shocked that immigrants from PRC felt strongly about the topic. One of these days I hope I get an opportunity to ask PRC people about it in an environment where I don't have fear of making them totally angry which I sure don't want to do.
I think it is very important to keep our willingness to defend Taiwan a matter of conjecture. Yes, we are arming them to the teeth, but that could be in order that they will be able to defend themselves. If we pull a Joe Biden or a Nancy Pelosi and come down too hard on our intent to defend Taiwan, we make China more antsy and more likely to step up their aggression towatd Taiwan, as they have done since Pelosi's visit there. Our official policy has been the "one China policy," ever since Nixon opened the door to renewed relations between the US and China. What that has consisted of is that we give lip service to the idea that Taiwan is part of China, but make it in everybody's interest to have Taiwan continue to govern itself as a democracy, as long as it doesn't get carried away and start talking about declaring full independence from the PRC. Some Taiwanese politicians have veered dangerously in that direction, but the newly elected President seems to have put a lid on that for now, wisely.
True; but PRC has some responsibility too. Xi is in my opinion, going down a route that could change US attitudes on support for Taiwanese independence. George Bush, from what I understand, read the riot act to Taiwanese leaders once on the topic but if it looks like PRC is going to do things that tick off America, which he is doing at least to an extent, it would change US attitudes on the topic. There are obviously lots of hurdles to clear such as military realities and UN recognition and fact that lots of people would die but if Taiwan said they wanted to declare independence, I'm not so sure an aggressive US President wouldn't go along someday.
Part of the difficulty with this issue is that the vast majority of Westerners think the story of Taiwan starts with the status quo. They don’t realize that Taiwan was part of China and only has its de facto independence today because of an American intervention into the Chinese Civil War in 1950.
CCP was defeated at Kinmen (sp) or one of the other islands from what I understand with zero intervention of US. They had ships/arms delivered from US during WW2; if you want to call that intervention one can argue your position but I don't buy it. Taiwan was blockading PRC ports for several years and slowly pulled back.
There was some intervention during the 50s; I can't remember what all but China was not in a position to take Taiwan in this time as they were on the brink of collapse. Korean war and Great Leap Forward.
I know most people in China believe Mao united China, and disagree with me on my final point but I think Nationalist leadership would have been better. They obviously had there problems but they would have worked through them and avoided Korean War and Great Leap Forward which brought tens of millions of deaths.
The fact that America did not aid Taiwan is not in serious dispute; most disagree with me on Nationalists; I think they were brainwashed in school and I can understand why; the war with Japan was extremely difficult and CCP ruled afterward.
It is difficult to respond to your point in full because you did not write in full sentences but your contention that “America did not aid Taiwan is not in serious dispute” is false.
First, it isn’t accurate to say that the U.S. did or did not support “Taiwan.” This makes it sound like the U.S. was making political decisions with respect to an independent foreign state called Taiwan. This was not the case and nobody thought it was the case in 1950. Instead, the issue was American support for the KMT in the context of a civil war for control of China. Taiwan was understood to be part of China at this time. Taiwan’s status as a province of China was not in dispute. The Taiwanese regime claimed to be the rightful government of all of China. That’s why it called itself the “Republic of China.” Their theory was that they’d eventually defeat the Maoists and rule a unified China. The Taiwanese regime at that time didn’t claim to be a separate sovereign state. That is a recent development.
Second, the U.S. provided critical military and political support for the KMT during this period of time. Most notably, President Truman ordered the American Seventh Fleet to enter the Taiwan Strait in June of 1950, which effectively protected Taiwan from a potential invasion from the mainland. Second, the U.S. refused to recognize the PRC as the rightful government of China and instead recognized the ROC/KMT as the rightful government of all of China (despite actually controlling only a single island province.)
Sorry for the English; was in a rush and my English is bad but your comment was unnecessary.
Your post says nothing interesting. CCP couldn't even take Quemoy in 1949. Could they have taken it later without US fleet; almost certainly and those islands were an issue in 1960 US election as they were so vulnerable. Taking them would have meant nothing in the wider context of dispute although it would have cost lives and served as propoganda victory.
PRC did defeat ROC on the mainland but they failed to do so everywhere and US help was important and ROC had realistic, if long odds, hope of returning in 1950s as PRC was such a mess. An interesting story, that has mixed messages (things are rarely black and white) was how so many Chinese POWs went to Taiwan after Korean war.
US probably should have recognized the CCP earlier but it didn't. In any event, the war is long over even if papers were not signed and Taiwan is independent.
How can you be so intelligent on Ukraine, and so blind to Israel? The genocide argument is the most easily debunked argument in the history of genocide. On SEVERAL levels (not just the fact that the Gaza population has been increasing multiplicatively)
Oh their population has grown in the 75 years after we pushed them into Gaza, so it can’t be a genocide. This is the most childish defense of “pro-genociders”. Hard to believe adults utter these words, let alone believe them.
If only this was the limit to what they'd say. This ignorance backs up a latent Islamiphobic, the same type of ignorance that calls it humane and liberatory to deny Muslim women their hijab.
You are being disingenuous. Yes, I can see it meeting the legal definition of genocide which is a mile wide and would incorporate hundreds and perhaps thousands of events since the definition was established 75 years ago, but genocide in historical terms? Not even close.
So you acknowledge that according to the laws of the land, it is a genocide. That’s really all that matters. Why? Because we codified these laws to abolish the (historical) laws of the jungle. I’d bet the farm you’d be screaming bloody genocide if the shoe was on the other foot.
1) Using the laws alone, yes, essentially any war is covered. The court has interpreted the position in a reasonable fashion so there are not genocides every day. This means the law is developed by ICJ through its ruling which would serve as case law under the English tradition of law. Courts are not always perfect at following precedent and understanding facts. I've seen situations where courts have so totally messed up that I knew when advising clients that you simply choose whichever is best for you and fight in court if challenged.
2) ICJ ignored previous rulings in reaching its decision for provisional measures to prevent the possibility of genocide. I'm of the US tradition and ignoring previous rulings is hard for me to accept but courts do it and the ICJ is not of US tradition (which is based on UK) so in the end, I'm not prepared to say they ruled incorrectly. It seems like the ICJ is going down the tradition of California courts in interpreting what a big tax issue from the '80s and '90s was where no one knows what the law is.
In the end, the provisional ruling did not hold that genocide did not take place; merely that there was plausible evidence one is taking place. I do not agree with the courts decision but it was the decision and if they finally conclude that it is genocide, it could lead to the breakdown of the ICJ which is a terrible shame as it would mean the court will lack legitamacy and a court without enforcement powers must rely on buy-in from world. It could eventually be the equivalent of UN Resolutions which are nothing more that statements of opininion that mean nothing.
A lot of words to say “I don’t respect the law when the law is applied to me.” And not ending there but then because it ruled against you that it’s wholly illegitimate. Hope you see the arrogance of your words - the west does not constitute the “the world”. And the world now clearly understands the “laws” written by white men in power were never meant to apply to those white men or their circle of friends.
Just the fact that Israel cut off water, power and food to the entire population of Gaza constitutes genocide. Again, I’d bet the farm that you’d agree if the shoe was on the other foot.
I'm pretty contrarian and a non-revolutionary. Obviously, one has to live in the times but had I lived in Massachusetts at time of revolutionary war, I'm pretty sure I would not have been volunterring to fight in Washington's army.
I understand the contradictions and how courts work about as well as a non-attorney can. I'm also comfortable saying I understand them better than all but a few attorneys that practice law in that area. I've had some exposure to international organizations that work out disputes in business and let me tell you, it is thoroughly unimpressive. Still, they are the best we've got.
Finally, Professor Meirsheimer is not communicating the issues that the court faces. The law, the facts and make no mistake about it, politics plays a role because the court needs to maintain respect for its rulings. I don't think a ruling based on the law is close; Israel wins but respect for the law is important too so they are going to be held to a far higher standard than others, in part due to overwhelming power but anti-semetism in the world is an element too.
Genocide does not just mean killing everyone. That is one definition. Genocide is also the destruction of a country, Palestine, the goal for more than a century of the Zionists/Israelis/Jews; the destruction of a nation, Palestine and the Palestinian people; the destruction of a culture, Palestinian. Israel has been committing genocide from 1943 when Jewish terrorist gangs rampaged their bloody way around Palestine, preparing the way for the Zionist invasion in 1947.
Worth remembering that traumatised humans will have higher fertility rates, which is Nature's plan for survival. And, since the only thing the Palestinians have had in defence is numbers, and they have religious rules, hardly surprising numbers increased.
Genocide is the planned destruction of a people, culture, country, nation. The goal of Zionism, clearly stated has been the destruction of the Palestinian people, whom they call Arabs, but really they meant and mean non-Jews because Arab Palestinian Jews were given immediate citizenship when Israel was invented in 1947.
Since the goal is to eradicate Palestine - Israelis call Occupied Palestine ridiculous names like Judea and Samaria so they do not have to say Palestine - that is genocide.
Since the goal is to eradicate the Palestinian people either by driving them out or killing them, that is genocide.
So, the genocide argument is the most easily validated argument in the history of genocide in terms of how it applies to Palestine, the people, the nation, the country, the culture.
Are you delusional Andy? Are you reading dreamed up words Andy? There's nothing about what you claimed in the article, Andy. The article is not news to me and your claim still needs a source, Andy. Did you forget what you wrote, Andy? 🤦♂️
Sold a lot of books perhaps. I should keep my mouth shut as I've never read the book about the Israeli lobby but it is just the way America works. Palestinians have lobbyists as does just about every group. Perhaps money helped in the start but to claim that people aren't capable of making informed decisions is just insulting.
No group has more power over any other country than the Zionist/Israeli/Jewish lobby groups have in the US. If they were Muslims and not Jews, Chinese and not Israeli, it would be called treason and invasion by stealth.
It is not that people are not capable of making informed decisions, it is that most people do not want their career and lives destroyed which is what the ZIJ lobby does to those who do not play stooge for them. I imagine Mossad also has quite a collection of compromising information and photos which, if released, would mean utter destruction for all those so compromised. Which is most, if not all.
The consistent compliance by American politicians and Governments, if it were any other group, would raise not just suspicion but rage. You have been infiltrated by people who do not have your nation or your interests at heart, only their own. Unfortunately they are now so entrenched that ridding the system of them is difficult.
The US could start by doing what most other developed nations do and banning lobbying, which is just a modern form of bribery, very common in the Third World but such a bad look for countries which call themselves developed.
And all donations to any politician or Government facility should be transparent. How much, from whom, when etc. But how can any of that happen when the people who actually run the United States are going to block it at every turn?
You don't seem to concede the importance of coalition building or allies. You want to do something, you consult with others and if they disagree, you try and reach agreement. One can legitimately argue that US and Israel & most of Europe, Egypt and other Arab governments are of one mind regarding Hamas but that does not mean they say so publicly.
Take a country like Qatar. Their people stand with Palestinians but the government is torn but leans toward whatever the US wants. Saudi Arabia is somewhat similar but their leaders lean toward Israel too but not in public. Egypt is building walls to keep Palestinians out but has to tread a thin line as, once again, the people support Muslim Brotherhood.
US can take deeply unpopular decisions because the vast majority of people support Israel. Professor Mearsheimer thinks that is because of careful cultivation of people by Israeli lobby. He is right that Israeli lobby works hard to ingratiate itself but there is strong inclination in that direction anyway and I think, if I ever actually read his book on Israeli lobby, my position would remain the same.
Personally, I'm not impacted by Israeli lobby. When Oct. 7th happened, I wondered if perhaps the Israelis should ignore it but just a very little bit. They made the decision to invade for what I think were excellent reasons. Doesn't mean it will work out well, one simply does not know how things will work out but you make the best call that you can knowing you will make mistakes and hope (only hope) that it will work out long-term. What was going on with Hamas shooting rockets into Israel, building stockpiles and periodically coming into Israel to kill people while Western and Arab nations feed and clothe them in a fashion that much of the world would be envious of, was not sustainable. Something had to change and I think there is a chance Gazans will learn that they are not going to push Israel into the sea. If they can't stop hating, they have to learn fear; it is unfortunate but it is the way of the world.
The 'hatred' of the Palestinians of which you speak pales into insignificence compared to the exponentially vaster hatred as demonstrated from Israel towards the Palestinians.
Putin is waging war to protect Russian borders, to prevent the US/Nato from breaking Russia up so they can steal its resources and to protect the ethnic Russians in Ukraine who are being persecuted and murdered by the Ukrainian Government. Russia is fighting a proxy US/Nato war created and maintained by the US and its lackey allies using Ukraine as cannon fodder. Russia is fighting a defensive war against those who wish to destroy it.
Netanyahu is waging war to maintain occupation and colonisation of Palestine with a goal to kill or drive out every last non-Jew in Palestine/Israel. They had hoped to use them as compliant slaves but since that is not going to happen there are always Filipinos for that.
Israel occupies all of Palestine and continues to violently and murderously colonise it and the Palestinian Resistance is a hindrance in that goal.
Netanyahu is fighting a colonial war which began in 1943 when Jewish terrorist gangs rampaged around Palestine in a bloody slaughter paving the way for the invasion by Zionist forces in 1947. Since that time the Israelis have taken all of Palestine and continued to throw Christians and Muslims out of their homes and hand them to Jews. The Zionist occupiers have also denied justice, freedom and human and civil rights to the 6 million, Palestinians, the native people of the land they have stolen.
They are very different wars. Russia is fighting a war of defence against aggression from enemies and Israel is fighting a colonial war to ethnically cleanse the country it has colonised and to purify it of what the Germans called, Untermenschen - subhumans.
Know what the Palestinians who stayed in Israel in 1948 rather than fleeing to Arab countries? Israelis, and they make up 21% of the population, attend universities, are doctors, lawyers and entrepreneurs. They also support Israel’s fight against Hamas.
The only ethnic cleaning in the Middle East is by Muslims. 600,000 killed in Syria alone as an example.
Israel: stay strong and defeat this Hamas blight. Continue to offer peace which Palestinians have rejected for 75 years. Perhaps one day they will prefer living in peace next to Israel rather than deluding themselves that they will defeat Israel and drive the Jews into the sea.
The Palestinians did not stay in Israel in 1948 they stayed in their homeland, Palestine. The fact that the Zionists could not kill or drive them all out, such a bad look, is why some ended up being fake Israeli citizens in the fake Zionist colonial State.
The non-Jews who are Israeli citizens have inferior rights to Jewish citizens and while Israel plays the colonial apartheid game of pretending they are equal, they are not. Palestinians in Occupied Palestine also attended universities and are doctors, lawyers and entrepreneurs, brilliantly so given how crushed they are under Zionist military occupation rule. The Palestinian culture is ancient, sophisticated and quite brilliant. Far more so than the newbies on the block who call themselves Israelisw.
As to ethnic cleansing in the Middle East it is Israel which stands out as the atrocity and we have that as a matter of historical record. Even Israeli historians agree on that.
Israel can never defeat the Palestinian Resistance and Zionism will not last another 10 years. Israel does not have to offer peace to the Palestinians, BUT JUSTICE. With Justice comes peace.
There are 16 million Palestinians in the world, half in the Diaspora and they will fight to their last breath for their homeland. Now they have billions of people around the world on their side. Israel cannot exterminate 6 million Palestinians it holds under occupation let alone the 16 million so this colonial war will end when Palestine is free.
Israelis can then decide to either stay as Palestinians in a real democracy or go back to where they came from.
As to driving Jews into the sea, most Jews do not live in Israel, never did and never will and most Israelis are not real Jews. A quarter are Christians and Muslims, albeit fake citizens but still resident and most of those who call themselves Jews are atheist/secular and therefore not Jews, so your point is moot.
Oh and the Palestinian Resistance which includes Hamas has stated they have no problems with Jews just Zionism. So Jews will be fine as Palestinians. In fact Orthodox Jews, the sane ones, are fighting for Palestine not Israel.
i didn't even listen. of course it is genocide in gaza. of course it is wrong to support israel's genocidal activities. incredible. but why can mearshimer see that this is genocidal and wrong but justify putin's attack, some say genocidal attack, on ukraine? he is quite happy to predict ukraine;s furture rump status. rump is his word. his eyes twinkled as he was saying it. absolutely gleeful about it
The only thing these two different issues have in common is the support of the US. In
Russia our interest is to oust Putin by engaging him in an endless war using Ukrainian lives to do it. In the second we are participating in a genocide which is the extermination and removal of people from their land. There is an obvious difference between the two. Why don't you reference what happened in the 1980's when we were successful in bringing Russia down using the Mujahideen as an instrument of that destruction. In Ukraine we are using the lives of Ukrainians to accomplish the same objective. What they have in common is the US doesn't give a shit as to who dies to further our own political agenda.
Maybe Ukraine is a proxy country for the US. It is for some. But I think there are ethical people in the US who are naturally horrified by the Russians just as they are horrified y the Israelis. There are on the other hand the sophisticated left who have no natural human eyes. Just ideology from chomsky
Well, as an American I'm more horrified by the US, Let me just say that living through the 21st century with one war after another, all based on lies, will do that to you. How many millions killed and displaced during those lying wars? Doesn't that matter to you? We support a coup in Ukraine that overturns a pro-Russian Yanukovych who has to high tale it to Russia? Does it bother you that we helped neo-Nazis who engaged in many acts of violence during that coup to do that? Does it bother you that neocon Nuland from the Obama years was on the phone deciding who is going to take over Yanukovych's job, and doesn't give a fuck what Europe thinks? Well, neocons don't give a fuck what anyone thinks, or how many die? The Minsk accords, well Merkel said they were BS promised to Russia to buy Ukraine time to become militarized. It is, and always was the US that was most accountable and is still willing to sacrifice Ukrainian lives to be the strong man on the block. As Biden said, Putin's got to go and gave the game away first hand.
You call expanding his empire by annihilating a sovereign country defending his borders? Russians have been telling Ukraine for centuries that Ukraine doesn't exist. Before either nato or US existed. I wonder who is coaching you
The Russians are not expanding an empire. They are protecting ethnic Russia in what is now called Ukraine but which has been Russia for thousands of years. The Ukraine means The Borderlands. This is why there are so many Russians living in Ukraine.
The Russians, Putin, were prepared to avoid war and institute the Minsk Agreement. The Ukrainians reneged and the German leader admitted they had never intended to implement it - they lied.
Ukraine did not exist until historically recent times. Ukraine would not have been invaded if it had been sensible and if the Americans had not wanted war with Russia. The Russians do not need Ukraine but they will protect the areas they have taken which are ethnically Russian.
There is absolutely no basis to claim that the war in Ukraine has genocidal aims. It was a ridiculous assertion when people applied it to Ukraine’s low-intensity war against the separatists in the Donbas after 2014 and it is ridiculous when applied to the war now.
The Russian invasion probably was not justified but that’s rather beside the point. Realism doesn’t deal with justification like international relations are legal cases. There’s no authority that can enforce the rules against sovereign states, so the only law that applies to them is the law of the jungle. The conflict in Ukraine could have easily been avoided if the U.S. had been willing to make a few basic concessions to Russia that were unimportant to the former’s interests but vital to Russian interests.
Because the Russians are fighting to defend themselves and their borders and the Israelis are fighting to maintain a murderous colonial occupation of Palestine.
Hopefully now we don't have to listen to John and commenters here pretend that the rapes and atrocities of Oct 7th didn't happen. From the UN report: "[Civilians] were shot, often at close range; burnt alive in their homes as they tried to hide in their safe rooms; gunned down or killed by grenades in bomb shelters where they sought refuge. Other violations included sexual violence, abduction of hostages and corpses, the public display of captives, both dead and alive, the mutilation of corpses, including decapitation, and the looting and destruction of civilian property.”
Hamas is the legally elected government of Gaza. This fact seems to go unnoticed by many people. When a people's legitimate government attacks your country it is an act of war. And you are justified to wage war in response as needed to render said government and people unable to attack you any longer. You imply the Israeli response has been disproportionate, but what should their response be? How many dead civilians should Israel be required to accept without responding? Is 1:1 OK? Why? Why not? There's no answer to this because the entire idea is absurd.
War kills people. Some of those people are civilians. More of them are civilians when your enemy intentionally hides military infrastructure in the middle of schools and apartment complexes. But there is no comparison between those casualties and the intentional raping and slaughtering of civilians that Hamas (the legally elected government of Gaza) did on Oct 7th.
As a side note, I find it weird that so many people are willing to accept everything the Hamas government says as absolutely true ("30,000 civilians have ben killed, mostly women and children!") but assume that everything Israel says is propaganda to be disbelieved absent evidence otherwise. Especially when there have been several cases of Hamas making claims ("Israel bombed a hospital! Thousands dead!") that were later proven 100% false (it was a parking lot and about a dozen people died.) It's not that I believe Israel; I don't. It's the uncritical acceptance of the Hamas line I find so odd. Propaganda is part of war. Both sides engage in it. Everything should be viewed with profound skepticism, including body counts.
I think you have a valid point. This conflict did not start on Oct 7th; it started in 1948. So I could accept that logic if Hamas (and the PLO before it) wasn't obviously and intentionally targeting civilians. There are lots of military targets in Israel. Attack border posts. Attack air bases. But attacking a music festival? Throwing grenades into people's homes (not illegal settlements, people in Israel proper)? Dragging naked and bound young women out of their homes to be raped and executed in the genitals? You can't do that and not expect your enemy to respond brutally.
This conflict has been basically frozen since 1967. It's time to end it. Israel has the capacity to do so, the moral authority to do so, and they should. Hamas will never accept Israel's existence; therefore they must be destroyed.
Professor Mearsheimer, I think we need a new book or article about the rights, responsibilities, survival tactics, etc. of small and medium sized non-hegemonic countries in a new multi polar world. I can't accept that we just have to knuckle under or give up our sovereignty to either our grumpy neighbours or our "white knights." How can small countries play the big guys off of each other, or join together for protection without provoking a larger neighbour, without letting themselves be used as a cudgel by another large state against its enemy? Isn't this a much more interesting subject for international relations than what, say, America might be able to do to China? Can the overwhelming number of small countries actually provide sufficient ballast to keep the ship of peace upright? And I guess if history shows it can't be done (the Melian Dialogue?), then I think an updated version of the fact would be useful anyway.
Dear John: remember your words: "if you poke into the nose of Godzilla (Russia) sleeping besides you, man, you're are in a trouble". "What is good for the goose is good for the gender". Have not Hamas poked (killed) Israel for years and years? Now they are in a trouble, a big one... Sorry.
BIG DIFFERENCE. HUGE DIFFERENCE. MASSIVE DIFFERENCE IS
Ukraine is a State which has Russia as a neighbour and it needs good relations with its big neighbour as Canada and Mexico do with the US. The Ukrainians were fools to poke the Russian bear but the fact is, the Ukrainians were fools letting the Americans use them to poke the Russian bear. If Canada or Mexico did with China or Russia what the Ukrainians did with the US they would also be invaded. Let us deal with realities.
Hamas is part of the Palestinian Resistance which only exists because Israel has maintained the longest holocaust in modern history and the most venal, evil, murderous military colonial occupation rule over Palestine in modern history.
In other words, the Palestinians, including Hamas are fighting those who have stolen their land and denied them justice, freedom and human and civil rights. If you want to compare Hamas/Palestinian Resistance to anyone then it must be to the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto and the French and Polish Resistance.
As to who is in big trouble, it is Zionist Israel which, with any luck will be gone in less than a decade, an evil colonial travesty finally removed. The Star of David now equates with the Swastika around the world and the destruction of Zionism will be cheered as was the destruction of Nazism, for the same reasons.
What a load of crap; sorry but it is war and Hamas is responsible. UNRWA deserves a lot of credit as do the people of Gaza with Israel coming in a distant fourth place and many other nations including Arab and US pulling up the rear. Then again; I didn't listen to it as I don't have that kind of time on my hands.
For Israel to finish the job it would need to exterminate 6 million Palestinians crushed under Occupation, 2 million who are second-class fake Israeli citizens and another 8 million in the Diaspora.
How do you think that can be done? As long as Palestinians breathe they will fight for their homeland, for justice and for freedom.
Israel could kill every single Hamas member and supporter and another version of Hamas would arise, and then another and another and another, each more determined, each more desperate to free their homeland and themselves. Israel was never going to win this colonial war and the slaughter in Occupied Palestine, particularly the Gaza prison at this point, just makes them loathed around the world.
It has also allowed the dissemination of the facts about Israel's foundation and its murderous function since it invented itself in 1947.
There is no "colonial" war. This is one of those idiot statements being pushed by the woke crowd. Jews and Arabs lived in this land. The Ottomans took control. Then the British. Then the UN formally separated the land into two states. At every step of the way before Israel's statehood and ever since 1948, the Palestinians have rejected having their own country. There were no Jews/Israelis in Gaza after 2005. What did Hamas do with the $$ billions in aid they received? Did they invest in education, infrastructure, resorts on the Mediterraean, etc.? NO! They spent it on terror tunnels and weapons with one objective: killing innocent Jews. The good news is that the Saudis, Bahrain, UAE, and other moderate Arab countries are tired of the rejectionist, radical terrorist Palestinians and are rooting for Israel to finish off Hamas so they and the region can move forward living in peace and prosperity. Will a new Palestinian leadership emerge that decides its better to living in peace in their own country rathern than raise their children with the delusion that they will one day destroy Israel and own the river to the sea? Probably not, as the Palestinians have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
One truly positive thing to come out of Israel's genocidal slaughter and ethnic cleansing in Occupied Palestine is that the world is not only talking about the Zionist State they are reading up on its history.
More people now know:
1. Israel was founded in murderous colonial genocide and ethnic cleansing.
2. Israel has never been legal because Lord Balfour, the League of Nations and the UN had no right to partition any country on the planet. And in fact they did not because they could not. They made a recommendation which had no legality and which was totally immoral that Palestine be divided in two, allowing European colonists to set up a racist religious State in most of Palestine.
Then the Zionist thugs invaded and slaughtered their way across Palestine, murdering thousands of men, women and children and driving out nearly a million. They wiped from the face of the earth, but not British Mandate maps, 530 towns and villages and stole the homes, land, possessions, artefacts of Palestine and handed them to Jewish colonists. That wrong has never been righted .
3. Because Israel has never made reparation and compensation for the thefts of land, homes, possessions in law it owns absolutely nothing of or in Palestine and all remain the rightful possession of their original owners.
4. Israel has inflicted the longest holocaust in modern history on the Palestinians.
5. Israel has inflicted the most murderous colonisation and occupation in modern history, certainly by any State calling itself a Western democracy.
6. Israel has spent 90 years on a bloody rampage in Palestine, beginning with the Jewish terrorist gangs from 1943 who paved the way for the invasion by Zionist thugs in 1947. The level of murder, torture, abuse and horrors inflicted on the Palestinians by Zionist Israelis rank as some of the worst in the past century. Certainly the worst for a coloniser.
You have it wrong from the start. Jews - a religion. Arabs - a culture. You need to compare apples with apples.
Neither religions, Jews, or Arabs, a culture, have a right to self determination or a homeland.
THIS IS A COLONIAL WAR WAGED BY EUROPEAN COLONISTS WHO CALL THEMSELVES ISRAELIS WHO INVADED PALESTINE IN 1947 AND NOW OCCUPY AND CONTINUE TO COLONISE ALL OF IT, DISPOSSESSING THE NATIVE PEOPLE, THE PALESTINIANS.
A colonial war is where an invader sets up its colony in someone else's country which is what the Zionists did and do when they invented Israel.
THE UN HAD NO LEGAL RIGHT TO SEPARATE ANY COUNTRY ON THE PLANET. And it did not. It made a recommendation which had no legal basis. The Zionists then invaded.
THE PALESTINIANS HAVE NEVER BEEN OFFERED A FULLY INDEPENDENT STATE ON MOST OF THEIR OWN HOMELAND WHICH IS THEIRS BY RIGHT. Actually all of it is theirs by right and the Israelis have no rights as occupiers and colonisers.
Bagging the Palestinians does not make a case. They are the victims and have right on their side. Zionists/Israelis/Jews are the occupiers and aggressors and are totally in the wrong and always were.
Palestine will be free and no doubt some Israelis will remain as Palestinians. The rest will go back to where they came from. If you think that cannot happen because Israelis have been camping in Palestine for nearly 80 years, remember, the Portugese went home from Angola after 500 years.
Wow…you are batshit crazy. And historically not even close. The Arabs were originally offered 83% of Palestine by the British and turned that down. The good news is the rest of the Arab world wants to live in peace with Israel. The Palestinians will either be part of the new Middle East or remain stuck in their rejectionist ways, supported by delusional nitwits like you.
We are not talking about Arabs, a culture, unless you want to call the Israelis, Europeans and I doubt you do.
We are talking about Palestinians. And you made me laugh, what the British were offering 83% of Palestine to the people of Palestine. Get real. It is the old colonial mindset mate and people will no longer tolerate it. Particularly younger generations.
Zionist Israel will not last another 10 years and the world will cheer, including sane Jews with a conscience and there are a lot of them.
The Arab world is not the issue. Why do you keep talking about it? They don't care about Israel, they just care about making money. Israel is running out of money and boycotts and sanctions will destroy its economy. The Americans cannot afford, literally to keep funding the Zionist State so that will dry up.
Israel has destroyed itself with its racist, elitist, colonial horrors and good riddance to its brief and murderous history.
Speaking today before boarding Air Force One, President Biden made clear that "the Israelis are cooperating" and have presented a rational offer that "is in the hands of Hamas right now."
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Blinken said, "It is on Hamas to make decisions about whether it is prepared to engage in that ceasefire."
Israel has accepted the U.S.-brokered deal that would entail a 6-week pause in fighting for the release of hostages and a surge of humanitarian aid into Gaza. However, Hamas has yet to agree.
If the fighting in Gaza continues into Ramadan (starting March 10), it is because Hamas refused to agree to this deal.
Furthermore, the made-up Palestinian definition of refugee applying to descendants of those who left in 1948 has been a sick propaganda tool by the leaders to keep their people from living in peace. This cynical “right of return” is a nonstarter and everyone knows it. But it’s been the rejectionist tool to kill every peace agreement. The Palestinian leaders must be replaced. Hamas must die.
Over the weekend, reports surfaced that Israel agreed – once again – to a deal that would pause the fighting in Gaza and see Israel release hundreds of convicted Palestinian terrorists in exchange for hostages freed.
U.S. officials confirmed that a six-week pause would take effect if Hamas agrees to release vulnerable hostages, including women and the ill, injured and elderly.
But as of this morning, the terror group has reportedly refused to provide a list of all living hostages or agree to the number of captives to be released in the deal. Talks are continuing today in Cairo, but Israel held back its delegation after Hamas refused to cooperate.
Hamas is prolonging this war. Those calling for a ceasefire now should place the blame on the terrorist organization preventing it from happening.
Israel lies. Israel has always lied. Nothing it ever says can be trusted.
The Palestinian Resistance holds a couple of hundred hostages, most military, so legitimate targets and Israel holds 6 million, let me repeat, SIX MILLION HOSTAGES under occupation colonial rule, with 12,000 plus imprisoned, tortured, mostly without charge or trial, including hundreds of children.
Why are you calling for the Palestinians to release hostages when the cause of it all is Israel holding millions of Palestinians hostage for more than half a century?
This BS claim by Hamas has already been rejected. The aid trucks were being swarmed by looters and the drivers threatened. The vast majority of those killed and injured were a result of being trampled and then run over by the fleeing truck drivers.
You realise your argument that civilians who die were being used as human shields by the Palestinian Resistance means you are saying that the fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto were using Jewish civilians as human shields when they chose to fight their occupiers and oppressors? Are you serious?
First, I don't believe Hamas casualty numbers. Second, Israel is being as careful as possible to reduce civilian casualties under the circumstances -- but given the war crime of Hamas positioning its terrorist infrastructure beneath and within the civilian population (under hospitals, mosques, apartment buildings, schools), with Israel warning people to move out of harm's way, there are unfortunately civilian deaths. This is ALL on Hamas.
No, you are the sick fuck. Gaza could have been a free, thriving, Dubai-like city on the Mediterranean. But your hero's Hamas turned it into a hell-hole spending their $ billions on creating a military encampment and prison to its people. That’s why Egypt and Israel had to secure the borders. After Israel vacated in 2005, thousands of missiles were launched at Israeli citizens. Hamas must be destroyed. All civilian deaths in Gaza are on them.
Why is YouTube censoring this video of you ? This is ridiculous. Americans are being stripped their constitutional rights left and right , all in the hands of a foreign entity. I am so repulsed with this daily censorship as we may as well move to communist china at this rate.
A few years ago I wrote a book in Arabic introducing the work of James Burnham "The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom". I regard you sir, as a true political scientist, a true Machiavellian, and a true defender of freedom. I salute you.
USA and Five Eyes and 14 Eyes, and EuroTrashLandia, and Klanada, Japan, Jew-real-hell, all of them, especially the UnUnited Queedom, all of them, millions and millions murdered and starved and sanctioned and poisoned in the name of the great feces race, that white one.
It is always inspiring to listen to John. The only point I don’t agree with him (not discussed in this interview) is that US must defend Taiwan. But he may change his mind if he understands how the Chinese mentality works. After all, China isn’t a nation state. It is a civilisation masquerading as a country.
Not sure a civilization masquerades as a country. Of course China is a nation state by any definition of that historically recent term.
The US does not want to defend Taiwan, it just wants to weaken China. It would happily see Taiwanese slaughtered, as it does in Ukraine, if it meant a weaker China. Taiwan is a part of China and the Chinese are patient. They will wait until the Taiwanese realise they are being used as pawns in the same sort of game the Americans are playing in Ukraine.
Mearsheimer is wrong on this count but then he was wrong 15 years ago when he concluded Russia would not go to war against Ukraine/US/Nato. No-one gets it all right.
Yes, China is a nation state. One of the main reasons Chinese say China is a civilisation masquerading as a country is because throughout our 5000 years of recorded history, we saw the rise and fall of dynasties. But the Chinese civilisation is a thread that runs through all the changes in dynasties (and political systems).
And our history tells us that whenever the central government was weak, there was turmoil.
All countries with 5000 years of history and the Egyptians are even older than that, probably 10,000 years given evidence regarding the Sphinx, know that time brings the rise and fall of many dynasties but that a cultural thread endures. India has seen the same. And everyone learned the same thing that weak government means turmoil which is why so many strong nations work so hard to remain powerful. They of course mistake power for strength. They are not the same thing.
Good call!
One of John’s key contentions as a Realist is that different nation-states don’t have fundamentally different mentalities; they are like billiard balls in the sense that the deterministic forces of international power politics effects all of them the same way, regardless of culture or history.
The modern Chinese nation-state is not exceptional in this regard.
Yours is an interesting post. I've read that at least part of the reason Xi has gone more totalitarian is fear that PRC would fracture. It certainly isn't a nation-state in the sense that we in the West think and I've debated when the US became a true nation and when PRC might become one. Most would say it was after the Civil War although I think one can argue for later. I do disagree regarding Taiwan though; it is a nation with ties to the Chinese civilization.
You aren't from Taiwan are you? I'm in a study group that is mostly Taiwanese, Taiwanese-Americans and immigrants that are from PRC. Was shocked when the topic of Taiwanese independence got brought up once and people got very snippy. It only got talked about once and we will never talk about it again; I was shocked that immigrants from PRC felt strongly about the topic. One of these days I hope I get an opportunity to ask PRC people about it in an environment where I don't have fear of making them totally angry which I sure don't want to do.
I think it is very important to keep our willingness to defend Taiwan a matter of conjecture. Yes, we are arming them to the teeth, but that could be in order that they will be able to defend themselves. If we pull a Joe Biden or a Nancy Pelosi and come down too hard on our intent to defend Taiwan, we make China more antsy and more likely to step up their aggression towatd Taiwan, as they have done since Pelosi's visit there. Our official policy has been the "one China policy," ever since Nixon opened the door to renewed relations between the US and China. What that has consisted of is that we give lip service to the idea that Taiwan is part of China, but make it in everybody's interest to have Taiwan continue to govern itself as a democracy, as long as it doesn't get carried away and start talking about declaring full independence from the PRC. Some Taiwanese politicians have veered dangerously in that direction, but the newly elected President seems to have put a lid on that for now, wisely.
True; but PRC has some responsibility too. Xi is in my opinion, going down a route that could change US attitudes on support for Taiwanese independence. George Bush, from what I understand, read the riot act to Taiwanese leaders once on the topic but if it looks like PRC is going to do things that tick off America, which he is doing at least to an extent, it would change US attitudes on the topic. There are obviously lots of hurdles to clear such as military realities and UN recognition and fact that lots of people would die but if Taiwan said they wanted to declare independence, I'm not so sure an aggressive US President wouldn't go along someday.
Part of the difficulty with this issue is that the vast majority of Westerners think the story of Taiwan starts with the status quo. They don’t realize that Taiwan was part of China and only has its de facto independence today because of an American intervention into the Chinese Civil War in 1950.
CCP was defeated at Kinmen (sp) or one of the other islands from what I understand with zero intervention of US. They had ships/arms delivered from US during WW2; if you want to call that intervention one can argue your position but I don't buy it. Taiwan was blockading PRC ports for several years and slowly pulled back.
There was some intervention during the 50s; I can't remember what all but China was not in a position to take Taiwan in this time as they were on the brink of collapse. Korean war and Great Leap Forward.
I know most people in China believe Mao united China, and disagree with me on my final point but I think Nationalist leadership would have been better. They obviously had there problems but they would have worked through them and avoided Korean War and Great Leap Forward which brought tens of millions of deaths.
The fact that America did not aid Taiwan is not in serious dispute; most disagree with me on Nationalists; I think they were brainwashed in school and I can understand why; the war with Japan was extremely difficult and CCP ruled afterward.
It is difficult to respond to your point in full because you did not write in full sentences but your contention that “America did not aid Taiwan is not in serious dispute” is false.
First, it isn’t accurate to say that the U.S. did or did not support “Taiwan.” This makes it sound like the U.S. was making political decisions with respect to an independent foreign state called Taiwan. This was not the case and nobody thought it was the case in 1950. Instead, the issue was American support for the KMT in the context of a civil war for control of China. Taiwan was understood to be part of China at this time. Taiwan’s status as a province of China was not in dispute. The Taiwanese regime claimed to be the rightful government of all of China. That’s why it called itself the “Republic of China.” Their theory was that they’d eventually defeat the Maoists and rule a unified China. The Taiwanese regime at that time didn’t claim to be a separate sovereign state. That is a recent development.
Second, the U.S. provided critical military and political support for the KMT during this period of time. Most notably, President Truman ordered the American Seventh Fleet to enter the Taiwan Strait in June of 1950, which effectively protected Taiwan from a potential invasion from the mainland. Second, the U.S. refused to recognize the PRC as the rightful government of China and instead recognized the ROC/KMT as the rightful government of all of China (despite actually controlling only a single island province.)
Sorry for the English; was in a rush and my English is bad but your comment was unnecessary.
Your post says nothing interesting. CCP couldn't even take Quemoy in 1949. Could they have taken it later without US fleet; almost certainly and those islands were an issue in 1960 US election as they were so vulnerable. Taking them would have meant nothing in the wider context of dispute although it would have cost lives and served as propoganda victory.
https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol69/iss2/8/
PRC did defeat ROC on the mainland but they failed to do so everywhere and US help was important and ROC had realistic, if long odds, hope of returning in 1950s as PRC was such a mess. An interesting story, that has mixed messages (things are rarely black and white) was how so many Chinese POWs went to Taiwan after Korean war.
US probably should have recognized the CCP earlier but it didn't. In any event, the war is long over even if papers were not signed and Taiwan is independent.
How can you be so intelligent on Ukraine, and so blind to Israel? The genocide argument is the most easily debunked argument in the history of genocide. On SEVERAL levels (not just the fact that the Gaza population has been increasing multiplicatively)
Oh their population has grown in the 75 years after we pushed them into Gaza, so it can’t be a genocide. This is the most childish defense of “pro-genociders”. Hard to believe adults utter these words, let alone believe them.
If only this was the limit to what they'd say. This ignorance backs up a latent Islamiphobic, the same type of ignorance that calls it humane and liberatory to deny Muslim women their hijab.
You are being disingenuous. Yes, I can see it meeting the legal definition of genocide which is a mile wide and would incorporate hundreds and perhaps thousands of events since the definition was established 75 years ago, but genocide in historical terms? Not even close.
So you acknowledge that according to the laws of the land, it is a genocide. That’s really all that matters. Why? Because we codified these laws to abolish the (historical) laws of the jungle. I’d bet the farm you’d be screaming bloody genocide if the shoe was on the other foot.
No. Please allow me to clarify.
1) Using the laws alone, yes, essentially any war is covered. The court has interpreted the position in a reasonable fashion so there are not genocides every day. This means the law is developed by ICJ through its ruling which would serve as case law under the English tradition of law. Courts are not always perfect at following precedent and understanding facts. I've seen situations where courts have so totally messed up that I knew when advising clients that you simply choose whichever is best for you and fight in court if challenged.
2) ICJ ignored previous rulings in reaching its decision for provisional measures to prevent the possibility of genocide. I'm of the US tradition and ignoring previous rulings is hard for me to accept but courts do it and the ICJ is not of US tradition (which is based on UK) so in the end, I'm not prepared to say they ruled incorrectly. It seems like the ICJ is going down the tradition of California courts in interpreting what a big tax issue from the '80s and '90s was where no one knows what the law is.
In the end, the provisional ruling did not hold that genocide did not take place; merely that there was plausible evidence one is taking place. I do not agree with the courts decision but it was the decision and if they finally conclude that it is genocide, it could lead to the breakdown of the ICJ which is a terrible shame as it would mean the court will lack legitamacy and a court without enforcement powers must rely on buy-in from world. It could eventually be the equivalent of UN Resolutions which are nothing more that statements of opininion that mean nothing.
A lot of words to say “I don’t respect the law when the law is applied to me.” And not ending there but then because it ruled against you that it’s wholly illegitimate. Hope you see the arrogance of your words - the west does not constitute the “the world”. And the world now clearly understands the “laws” written by white men in power were never meant to apply to those white men or their circle of friends.
Just the fact that Israel cut off water, power and food to the entire population of Gaza constitutes genocide. Again, I’d bet the farm that you’d agree if the shoe was on the other foot.
I'm pretty contrarian and a non-revolutionary. Obviously, one has to live in the times but had I lived in Massachusetts at time of revolutionary war, I'm pretty sure I would not have been volunterring to fight in Washington's army.
I understand the contradictions and how courts work about as well as a non-attorney can. I'm also comfortable saying I understand them better than all but a few attorneys that practice law in that area. I've had some exposure to international organizations that work out disputes in business and let me tell you, it is thoroughly unimpressive. Still, they are the best we've got.
Finally, Professor Meirsheimer is not communicating the issues that the court faces. The law, the facts and make no mistake about it, politics plays a role because the court needs to maintain respect for its rulings. I don't think a ruling based on the law is close; Israel wins but respect for the law is important too so they are going to be held to a far higher standard than others, in part due to overwhelming power but anti-semetism in the world is an element too.
😂 my point was exactly that it's not just that most simple level of arguments that exist
Genocide does not just mean killing everyone. That is one definition. Genocide is also the destruction of a country, Palestine, the goal for more than a century of the Zionists/Israelis/Jews; the destruction of a nation, Palestine and the Palestinian people; the destruction of a culture, Palestinian. Israel has been committing genocide from 1943 when Jewish terrorist gangs rampaged their bloody way around Palestine, preparing the way for the Zionist invasion in 1947.
Worth remembering that traumatised humans will have higher fertility rates, which is Nature's plan for survival. And, since the only thing the Palestinians have had in defence is numbers, and they have religious rules, hardly surprising numbers increased.
Exactly 💯
Genocide is the planned destruction of a people, culture, country, nation. The goal of Zionism, clearly stated has been the destruction of the Palestinian people, whom they call Arabs, but really they meant and mean non-Jews because Arab Palestinian Jews were given immediate citizenship when Israel was invented in 1947.
Since the goal is to eradicate Palestine - Israelis call Occupied Palestine ridiculous names like Judea and Samaria so they do not have to say Palestine - that is genocide.
Since the goal is to eradicate the Palestinian people either by driving them out or killing them, that is genocide.
So, the genocide argument is the most easily validated argument in the history of genocide in terms of how it applies to Palestine, the people, the nation, the country, the culture.
Yea, except the main point of your argument is false. Their goal is to destroy Hamas. Not Palestinians, not Arabs. Tin-foil hat much? 😂
No. Your main point is false. Their goal is not to destroy Hamas.
Their goal is to eliminate the Palestinian people...one way or another.
Source?
Are you delusional Andy? Are you reading dreamed up words Andy? There's nothing about what you claimed in the article, Andy. The article is not news to me and your claim still needs a source, Andy. Did you forget what you wrote, Andy? 🤦♂️
Sold a lot of books perhaps. I should keep my mouth shut as I've never read the book about the Israeli lobby but it is just the way America works. Palestinians have lobbyists as does just about every group. Perhaps money helped in the start but to claim that people aren't capable of making informed decisions is just insulting.
No group has more power over any other country than the Zionist/Israeli/Jewish lobby groups have in the US. If they were Muslims and not Jews, Chinese and not Israeli, it would be called treason and invasion by stealth.
It is not that people are not capable of making informed decisions, it is that most people do not want their career and lives destroyed which is what the ZIJ lobby does to those who do not play stooge for them. I imagine Mossad also has quite a collection of compromising information and photos which, if released, would mean utter destruction for all those so compromised. Which is most, if not all.
The consistent compliance by American politicians and Governments, if it were any other group, would raise not just suspicion but rage. You have been infiltrated by people who do not have your nation or your interests at heart, only their own. Unfortunately they are now so entrenched that ridding the system of them is difficult.
The US could start by doing what most other developed nations do and banning lobbying, which is just a modern form of bribery, very common in the Third World but such a bad look for countries which call themselves developed.
And all donations to any politician or Government facility should be transparent. How much, from whom, when etc. But how can any of that happen when the people who actually run the United States are going to block it at every turn?
You don't seem to concede the importance of coalition building or allies. You want to do something, you consult with others and if they disagree, you try and reach agreement. One can legitimately argue that US and Israel & most of Europe, Egypt and other Arab governments are of one mind regarding Hamas but that does not mean they say so publicly.
Take a country like Qatar. Their people stand with Palestinians but the government is torn but leans toward whatever the US wants. Saudi Arabia is somewhat similar but their leaders lean toward Israel too but not in public. Egypt is building walls to keep Palestinians out but has to tread a thin line as, once again, the people support Muslim Brotherhood.
US can take deeply unpopular decisions because the vast majority of people support Israel. Professor Mearsheimer thinks that is because of careful cultivation of people by Israeli lobby. He is right that Israeli lobby works hard to ingratiate itself but there is strong inclination in that direction anyway and I think, if I ever actually read his book on Israeli lobby, my position would remain the same.
Personally, I'm not impacted by Israeli lobby. When Oct. 7th happened, I wondered if perhaps the Israelis should ignore it but just a very little bit. They made the decision to invade for what I think were excellent reasons. Doesn't mean it will work out well, one simply does not know how things will work out but you make the best call that you can knowing you will make mistakes and hope (only hope) that it will work out long-term. What was going on with Hamas shooting rockets into Israel, building stockpiles and periodically coming into Israel to kill people while Western and Arab nations feed and clothe them in a fashion that much of the world would be envious of, was not sustainable. Something had to change and I think there is a chance Gazans will learn that they are not going to push Israel into the sea. If they can't stop hating, they have to learn fear; it is unfortunate but it is the way of the world.
The 'hatred' of the Palestinians of which you speak pales into insignificence compared to the exponentially vaster hatred as demonstrated from Israel towards the Palestinians.
Nonsense!
are you saying mearshimer is right to justify putin but wrong to criticize netanyahu???
Criticise natanyahy all you want, I do too
They are totally different situations.
Putin is waging war to protect Russian borders, to prevent the US/Nato from breaking Russia up so they can steal its resources and to protect the ethnic Russians in Ukraine who are being persecuted and murdered by the Ukrainian Government. Russia is fighting a proxy US/Nato war created and maintained by the US and its lackey allies using Ukraine as cannon fodder. Russia is fighting a defensive war against those who wish to destroy it.
Netanyahu is waging war to maintain occupation and colonisation of Palestine with a goal to kill or drive out every last non-Jew in Palestine/Israel. They had hoped to use them as compliant slaves but since that is not going to happen there are always Filipinos for that.
Israel occupies all of Palestine and continues to violently and murderously colonise it and the Palestinian Resistance is a hindrance in that goal.
Netanyahu is fighting a colonial war which began in 1943 when Jewish terrorist gangs rampaged around Palestine in a bloody slaughter paving the way for the invasion by Zionist forces in 1947. Since that time the Israelis have taken all of Palestine and continued to throw Christians and Muslims out of their homes and hand them to Jews. The Zionist occupiers have also denied justice, freedom and human and civil rights to the 6 million, Palestinians, the native people of the land they have stolen.
They are very different wars. Russia is fighting a war of defence against aggression from enemies and Israel is fighting a colonial war to ethnically cleanse the country it has colonised and to purify it of what the Germans called, Untermenschen - subhumans.
Know what the Palestinians who stayed in Israel in 1948 rather than fleeing to Arab countries? Israelis, and they make up 21% of the population, attend universities, are doctors, lawyers and entrepreneurs. They also support Israel’s fight against Hamas.
The only ethnic cleaning in the Middle East is by Muslims. 600,000 killed in Syria alone as an example.
Israel: stay strong and defeat this Hamas blight. Continue to offer peace which Palestinians have rejected for 75 years. Perhaps one day they will prefer living in peace next to Israel rather than deluding themselves that they will defeat Israel and drive the Jews into the sea.
The Palestinians did not stay in Israel in 1948 they stayed in their homeland, Palestine. The fact that the Zionists could not kill or drive them all out, such a bad look, is why some ended up being fake Israeli citizens in the fake Zionist colonial State.
The non-Jews who are Israeli citizens have inferior rights to Jewish citizens and while Israel plays the colonial apartheid game of pretending they are equal, they are not. Palestinians in Occupied Palestine also attended universities and are doctors, lawyers and entrepreneurs, brilliantly so given how crushed they are under Zionist military occupation rule. The Palestinian culture is ancient, sophisticated and quite brilliant. Far more so than the newbies on the block who call themselves Israelisw.
As to ethnic cleansing in the Middle East it is Israel which stands out as the atrocity and we have that as a matter of historical record. Even Israeli historians agree on that.
Israel can never defeat the Palestinian Resistance and Zionism will not last another 10 years. Israel does not have to offer peace to the Palestinians, BUT JUSTICE. With Justice comes peace.
There are 16 million Palestinians in the world, half in the Diaspora and they will fight to their last breath for their homeland. Now they have billions of people around the world on their side. Israel cannot exterminate 6 million Palestinians it holds under occupation let alone the 16 million so this colonial war will end when Palestine is free.
Israelis can then decide to either stay as Palestinians in a real democracy or go back to where they came from.
As to driving Jews into the sea, most Jews do not live in Israel, never did and never will and most Israelis are not real Jews. A quarter are Christians and Muslims, albeit fake citizens but still resident and most of those who call themselves Jews are atheist/secular and therefore not Jews, so your point is moot.
Oh and the Palestinian Resistance which includes Hamas has stated they have no problems with Jews just Zionism. So Jews will be fine as Palestinians. In fact Orthodox Jews, the sane ones, are fighting for Palestine not Israel.
You’re truly delusional.
Facts, reason, logic, common sense are never delusional but I can understand why you are not capable of recognising facts.
No transcript?
bc .... deaf W/MCI
i didn't even listen. of course it is genocide in gaza. of course it is wrong to support israel's genocidal activities. incredible. but why can mearshimer see that this is genocidal and wrong but justify putin's attack, some say genocidal attack, on ukraine? he is quite happy to predict ukraine;s furture rump status. rump is his word. his eyes twinkled as he was saying it. absolutely gleeful about it
The only thing these two different issues have in common is the support of the US. In
Russia our interest is to oust Putin by engaging him in an endless war using Ukrainian lives to do it. In the second we are participating in a genocide which is the extermination and removal of people from their land. There is an obvious difference between the two. Why don't you reference what happened in the 1980's when we were successful in bringing Russia down using the Mujahideen as an instrument of that destruction. In Ukraine we are using the lives of Ukrainians to accomplish the same objective. What they have in common is the US doesn't give a shit as to who dies to further our own political agenda.
Maybe Ukraine is a proxy country for the US. It is for some. But I think there are ethical people in the US who are naturally horrified by the Russians just as they are horrified y the Israelis. There are on the other hand the sophisticated left who have no natural human eyes. Just ideology from chomsky
Well, as an American I'm more horrified by the US, Let me just say that living through the 21st century with one war after another, all based on lies, will do that to you. How many millions killed and displaced during those lying wars? Doesn't that matter to you? We support a coup in Ukraine that overturns a pro-Russian Yanukovych who has to high tale it to Russia? Does it bother you that we helped neo-Nazis who engaged in many acts of violence during that coup to do that? Does it bother you that neocon Nuland from the Obama years was on the phone deciding who is going to take over Yanukovych's job, and doesn't give a fuck what Europe thinks? Well, neocons don't give a fuck what anyone thinks, or how many die? The Minsk accords, well Merkel said they were BS promised to Russia to buy Ukraine time to become militarized. It is, and always was the US that was most accountable and is still willing to sacrifice Ukrainian lives to be the strong man on the block. As Biden said, Putin's got to go and gave the game away first hand.
I recommend listening to the Grayzone, as they go into grave detail on Ukraine and it will help u better understand John's perspective.
Russia is defending its borders against US/Nato in a proxy war using the Ukrainians.
Israel is slaughtering Palestinian civilians as a murderous occupier and coloniser bent on ethnic cleansing and genocide. Very different.
You call expanding his empire by annihilating a sovereign country defending his borders? Russians have been telling Ukraine for centuries that Ukraine doesn't exist. Before either nato or US existed. I wonder who is coaching you
The Russians are not expanding an empire. They are protecting ethnic Russia in what is now called Ukraine but which has been Russia for thousands of years. The Ukraine means The Borderlands. This is why there are so many Russians living in Ukraine.
The Russians, Putin, were prepared to avoid war and institute the Minsk Agreement. The Ukrainians reneged and the German leader admitted they had never intended to implement it - they lied.
Ukraine did not exist until historically recent times. Ukraine would not have been invaded if it had been sensible and if the Americans had not wanted war with Russia. The Russians do not need Ukraine but they will protect the areas they have taken which are ethnically Russian.
There is absolutely no basis to claim that the war in Ukraine has genocidal aims. It was a ridiculous assertion when people applied it to Ukraine’s low-intensity war against the separatists in the Donbas after 2014 and it is ridiculous when applied to the war now.
The Russian invasion probably was not justified but that’s rather beside the point. Realism doesn’t deal with justification like international relations are legal cases. There’s no authority that can enforce the rules against sovereign states, so the only law that applies to them is the law of the jungle. The conflict in Ukraine could have easily been avoided if the U.S. had been willing to make a few basic concessions to Russia that were unimportant to the former’s interests but vital to Russian interests.
Because the Russians are fighting to defend themselves and their borders and the Israelis are fighting to maintain a murderous colonial occupation of Palestine.
Totally different.
https://news.un.org/en/sites/news.un.org.en/files/atoms/files/Mission_report_of_SRSG_SVC_to_Israel-oWB_29Jan_14_feb_2024.pdf
Hopefully now we don't have to listen to John and commenters here pretend that the rapes and atrocities of Oct 7th didn't happen. From the UN report: "[Civilians] were shot, often at close range; burnt alive in their homes as they tried to hide in their safe rooms; gunned down or killed by grenades in bomb shelters where they sought refuge. Other violations included sexual violence, abduction of hostages and corpses, the public display of captives, both dead and alive, the mutilation of corpses, including decapitation, and the looting and destruction of civilian property.”
The Palestinians are the genocidal ones here.
Hamas is the legally elected government of Gaza. This fact seems to go unnoticed by many people. When a people's legitimate government attacks your country it is an act of war. And you are justified to wage war in response as needed to render said government and people unable to attack you any longer. You imply the Israeli response has been disproportionate, but what should their response be? How many dead civilians should Israel be required to accept without responding? Is 1:1 OK? Why? Why not? There's no answer to this because the entire idea is absurd.
War kills people. Some of those people are civilians. More of them are civilians when your enemy intentionally hides military infrastructure in the middle of schools and apartment complexes. But there is no comparison between those casualties and the intentional raping and slaughtering of civilians that Hamas (the legally elected government of Gaza) did on Oct 7th.
As a side note, I find it weird that so many people are willing to accept everything the Hamas government says as absolutely true ("30,000 civilians have ben killed, mostly women and children!") but assume that everything Israel says is propaganda to be disbelieved absent evidence otherwise. Especially when there have been several cases of Hamas making claims ("Israel bombed a hospital! Thousands dead!") that were later proven 100% false (it was a parking lot and about a dozen people died.) It's not that I believe Israel; I don't. It's the uncritical acceptance of the Hamas line I find so odd. Propaganda is part of war. Both sides engage in it. Everything should be viewed with profound skepticism, including body counts.
I think you have a valid point. This conflict did not start on Oct 7th; it started in 1948. So I could accept that logic if Hamas (and the PLO before it) wasn't obviously and intentionally targeting civilians. There are lots of military targets in Israel. Attack border posts. Attack air bases. But attacking a music festival? Throwing grenades into people's homes (not illegal settlements, people in Israel proper)? Dragging naked and bound young women out of their homes to be raped and executed in the genitals? You can't do that and not expect your enemy to respond brutally.
This conflict has been basically frozen since 1967. It's time to end it. Israel has the capacity to do so, the moral authority to do so, and they should. Hamas will never accept Israel's existence; therefore they must be destroyed.
Professor Mearsheimer, I think we need a new book or article about the rights, responsibilities, survival tactics, etc. of small and medium sized non-hegemonic countries in a new multi polar world. I can't accept that we just have to knuckle under or give up our sovereignty to either our grumpy neighbours or our "white knights." How can small countries play the big guys off of each other, or join together for protection without provoking a larger neighbour, without letting themselves be used as a cudgel by another large state against its enemy? Isn't this a much more interesting subject for international relations than what, say, America might be able to do to China? Can the overwhelming number of small countries actually provide sufficient ballast to keep the ship of peace upright? And I guess if history shows it can't be done (the Melian Dialogue?), then I think an updated version of the fact would be useful anyway.
Dear John: remember your words: "if you poke into the nose of Godzilla (Russia) sleeping besides you, man, you're are in a trouble". "What is good for the goose is good for the gender". Have not Hamas poked (killed) Israel for years and years? Now they are in a trouble, a big one... Sorry.
BIG DIFFERENCE. HUGE DIFFERENCE. MASSIVE DIFFERENCE IS
Ukraine is a State which has Russia as a neighbour and it needs good relations with its big neighbour as Canada and Mexico do with the US. The Ukrainians were fools to poke the Russian bear but the fact is, the Ukrainians were fools letting the Americans use them to poke the Russian bear. If Canada or Mexico did with China or Russia what the Ukrainians did with the US they would also be invaded. Let us deal with realities.
Hamas is part of the Palestinian Resistance which only exists because Israel has maintained the longest holocaust in modern history and the most venal, evil, murderous military colonial occupation rule over Palestine in modern history.
In other words, the Palestinians, including Hamas are fighting those who have stolen their land and denied them justice, freedom and human and civil rights. If you want to compare Hamas/Palestinian Resistance to anyone then it must be to the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto and the French and Polish Resistance.
As to who is in big trouble, it is Zionist Israel which, with any luck will be gone in less than a decade, an evil colonial travesty finally removed. The Star of David now equates with the Swastika around the world and the destruction of Zionism will be cheered as was the destruction of Nazism, for the same reasons.
What a load of crap; sorry but it is war and Hamas is responsible. UNRWA deserves a lot of credit as do the people of Gaza with Israel coming in a distant fourth place and many other nations including Arab and US pulling up the rear. Then again; I didn't listen to it as I don't have that kind of time on my hands.
Here’s an easy way for the war to end: Hamas releases the hostages and its leaders surrender. If not, Israel must finish the job.
For Israel to finish the job it would need to exterminate 6 million Palestinians crushed under Occupation, 2 million who are second-class fake Israeli citizens and another 8 million in the Diaspora.
How do you think that can be done? As long as Palestinians breathe they will fight for their homeland, for justice and for freedom.
Israel could kill every single Hamas member and supporter and another version of Hamas would arise, and then another and another and another, each more determined, each more desperate to free their homeland and themselves. Israel was never going to win this colonial war and the slaughter in Occupied Palestine, particularly the Gaza prison at this point, just makes them loathed around the world.
It has also allowed the dissemination of the facts about Israel's foundation and its murderous function since it invented itself in 1947.
There is no "colonial" war. This is one of those idiot statements being pushed by the woke crowd. Jews and Arabs lived in this land. The Ottomans took control. Then the British. Then the UN formally separated the land into two states. At every step of the way before Israel's statehood and ever since 1948, the Palestinians have rejected having their own country. There were no Jews/Israelis in Gaza after 2005. What did Hamas do with the $$ billions in aid they received? Did they invest in education, infrastructure, resorts on the Mediterraean, etc.? NO! They spent it on terror tunnels and weapons with one objective: killing innocent Jews. The good news is that the Saudis, Bahrain, UAE, and other moderate Arab countries are tired of the rejectionist, radical terrorist Palestinians and are rooting for Israel to finish off Hamas so they and the region can move forward living in peace and prosperity. Will a new Palestinian leadership emerge that decides its better to living in peace in their own country rathern than raise their children with the delusion that they will one day destroy Israel and own the river to the sea? Probably not, as the Palestinians have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
One truly positive thing to come out of Israel's genocidal slaughter and ethnic cleansing in Occupied Palestine is that the world is not only talking about the Zionist State they are reading up on its history.
More people now know:
1. Israel was founded in murderous colonial genocide and ethnic cleansing.
2. Israel has never been legal because Lord Balfour, the League of Nations and the UN had no right to partition any country on the planet. And in fact they did not because they could not. They made a recommendation which had no legality and which was totally immoral that Palestine be divided in two, allowing European colonists to set up a racist religious State in most of Palestine.
Then the Zionist thugs invaded and slaughtered their way across Palestine, murdering thousands of men, women and children and driving out nearly a million. They wiped from the face of the earth, but not British Mandate maps, 530 towns and villages and stole the homes, land, possessions, artefacts of Palestine and handed them to Jewish colonists. That wrong has never been righted .
3. Because Israel has never made reparation and compensation for the thefts of land, homes, possessions in law it owns absolutely nothing of or in Palestine and all remain the rightful possession of their original owners.
4. Israel has inflicted the longest holocaust in modern history on the Palestinians.
5. Israel has inflicted the most murderous colonisation and occupation in modern history, certainly by any State calling itself a Western democracy.
6. Israel has spent 90 years on a bloody rampage in Palestine, beginning with the Jewish terrorist gangs from 1943 who paved the way for the invasion by Zionist thugs in 1947. The level of murder, torture, abuse and horrors inflicted on the Palestinians by Zionist Israelis rank as some of the worst in the past century. Certainly the worst for a coloniser.
You have it wrong from the start. Jews - a religion. Arabs - a culture. You need to compare apples with apples.
Neither religions, Jews, or Arabs, a culture, have a right to self determination or a homeland.
THIS IS A COLONIAL WAR WAGED BY EUROPEAN COLONISTS WHO CALL THEMSELVES ISRAELIS WHO INVADED PALESTINE IN 1947 AND NOW OCCUPY AND CONTINUE TO COLONISE ALL OF IT, DISPOSSESSING THE NATIVE PEOPLE, THE PALESTINIANS.
A colonial war is where an invader sets up its colony in someone else's country which is what the Zionists did and do when they invented Israel.
THE UN HAD NO LEGAL RIGHT TO SEPARATE ANY COUNTRY ON THE PLANET. And it did not. It made a recommendation which had no legal basis. The Zionists then invaded.
THE PALESTINIANS HAVE NEVER BEEN OFFERED A FULLY INDEPENDENT STATE ON MOST OF THEIR OWN HOMELAND WHICH IS THEIRS BY RIGHT. Actually all of it is theirs by right and the Israelis have no rights as occupiers and colonisers.
Bagging the Palestinians does not make a case. They are the victims and have right on their side. Zionists/Israelis/Jews are the occupiers and aggressors and are totally in the wrong and always were.
Palestine will be free and no doubt some Israelis will remain as Palestinians. The rest will go back to where they came from. If you think that cannot happen because Israelis have been camping in Palestine for nearly 80 years, remember, the Portugese went home from Angola after 500 years.
Wow…you are batshit crazy. And historically not even close. The Arabs were originally offered 83% of Palestine by the British and turned that down. The good news is the rest of the Arab world wants to live in peace with Israel. The Palestinians will either be part of the new Middle East or remain stuck in their rejectionist ways, supported by delusional nitwits like you.
We are not talking about Arabs, a culture, unless you want to call the Israelis, Europeans and I doubt you do.
We are talking about Palestinians. And you made me laugh, what the British were offering 83% of Palestine to the people of Palestine. Get real. It is the old colonial mindset mate and people will no longer tolerate it. Particularly younger generations.
Zionist Israel will not last another 10 years and the world will cheer, including sane Jews with a conscience and there are a lot of them.
The Arab world is not the issue. Why do you keep talking about it? They don't care about Israel, they just care about making money. Israel is running out of money and boycotts and sanctions will destroy its economy. The Americans cannot afford, literally to keep funding the Zionist State so that will dry up.
Israel has destroyed itself with its racist, elitist, colonial horrors and good riddance to its brief and murderous history.
Speaking today before boarding Air Force One, President Biden made clear that "the Israelis are cooperating" and have presented a rational offer that "is in the hands of Hamas right now."
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Blinken said, "It is on Hamas to make decisions about whether it is prepared to engage in that ceasefire."
Israel has accepted the U.S.-brokered deal that would entail a 6-week pause in fighting for the release of hostages and a surge of humanitarian aid into Gaza. However, Hamas has yet to agree.
If the fighting in Gaza continues into Ramadan (starting March 10), it is because Hamas refused to agree to this deal.
Furthermore, the made-up Palestinian definition of refugee applying to descendants of those who left in 1948 has been a sick propaganda tool by the leaders to keep their people from living in peace. This cynical “right of return” is a nonstarter and everyone knows it. But it’s been the rejectionist tool to kill every peace agreement. The Palestinian leaders must be replaced. Hamas must die.
Over the weekend, reports surfaced that Israel agreed – once again – to a deal that would pause the fighting in Gaza and see Israel release hundreds of convicted Palestinian terrorists in exchange for hostages freed.
U.S. officials confirmed that a six-week pause would take effect if Hamas agrees to release vulnerable hostages, including women and the ill, injured and elderly.
But as of this morning, the terror group has reportedly refused to provide a list of all living hostages or agree to the number of captives to be released in the deal. Talks are continuing today in Cairo, but Israel held back its delegation after Hamas refused to cooperate.
Hamas is prolonging this war. Those calling for a ceasefire now should place the blame on the terrorist organization preventing it from happening.
Israel lies. Israel has always lied. Nothing it ever says can be trusted.
The Palestinian Resistance holds a couple of hundred hostages, most military, so legitimate targets and Israel holds 6 million, let me repeat, SIX MILLION HOSTAGES under occupation colonial rule, with 12,000 plus imprisoned, tortured, mostly without charge or trial, including hundreds of children.
Why are you calling for the Palestinians to release hostages when the cause of it all is Israel holding millions of Palestinians hostage for more than half a century?
You're clearly an idiot. Rather than your emotional outbursts, how about educating yourself. I suggest starting with: https://a.co/d/gc45TQ9
This BS claim by Hamas has already been rejected. The aid trucks were being swarmed by looters and the drivers threatened. The vast majority of those killed and injured were a result of being trampled and then run over by the fleeing truck drivers.
Aren’t you tired of your lies? https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2024/02/29/gaza-food-aid-trucks-idf-swarm-gunfire-on-ground-diamond-vpx.cnn
Israel and Gaza were quiet in October 6. Hamas must die. Any civilians they use as human shields injured or killed are their fault.
You realise your argument that civilians who die were being used as human shields by the Palestinian Resistance means you are saying that the fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto were using Jewish civilians as human shields when they chose to fight their occupiers and oppressors? Are you serious?
You're a sicko.
First, I don't believe Hamas casualty numbers. Second, Israel is being as careful as possible to reduce civilian casualties under the circumstances -- but given the war crime of Hamas positioning its terrorist infrastructure beneath and within the civilian population (under hospitals, mosques, apartment buildings, schools), with Israel warning people to move out of harm's way, there are unfortunately civilian deaths. This is ALL on Hamas.
No, you are the sick fuck. Gaza could have been a free, thriving, Dubai-like city on the Mediterranean. But your hero's Hamas turned it into a hell-hole spending their $ billions on creating a military encampment and prison to its people. That’s why Egypt and Israel had to secure the borders. After Israel vacated in 2005, thousands of missiles were launched at Israeli citizens. Hamas must be destroyed. All civilian deaths in Gaza are on them.
Why is YouTube censoring this video of you ? This is ridiculous. Americans are being stripped their constitutional rights left and right , all in the hands of a foreign entity. I am so repulsed with this daily censorship as we may as well move to communist china at this rate.
Ok, smart guy. Explain that to me.
Thanks John!
A Skeptic War Reports - Complete War Coverage
https://askeptic.substack.com/p/war-reports-2024-03-04
Thank you professor and STOP this genocide
Hey Smearsheimer. How long till Russia airdrops aid into gaza hm? Xaxxaa. NEVER.
The only thing standing between CHINESE airdrops of aid into gaza is YOU.
Dear Professor Mersheimer,
A few years ago I wrote a book in Arabic introducing the work of James Burnham "The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom". I regard you sir, as a true political scientist, a true Machiavellian, and a true defender of freedom. I salute you.
USA and Five Eyes and 14 Eyes, and EuroTrashLandia, and Klanada, Japan, Jew-real-hell, all of them, especially the UnUnited Queedom, all of them, millions and millions murdered and starved and sanctioned and poisoned in the name of the great feces race, that white one.
https://paulokirk.substack.com/p/pressed-into-disservice-fighting